You are here

Well, it's that time again - slightly early this time as I'll be offline tomorrow (you lucky people...). Answers to the first crossword at the end. Most clues should lead you to words somehow associated with free software, but one or two "everyday" words have been slipped in to act as decoys :-)

Most modern GNU/Linux distributions are secure with their default minimal installs, whether desktop or server, while some distributions are designed specifically with security in mind. However, any GNU/Linux distribution that needs services available to other users or systems will need either enhanced or configurable security. There are other situations in which added security is beneficial; for example, a large environment, while secure to the outside world, would be enhanced with additional security measures in place.

In Part One and Part Two of this blog, I looked at Beagle and its alternative interfaces (Peagle, Yabi and Peagle). In this last part, I want to take a look at three other search engines as viable replacements for Beagle: Tracker, Recoll, Strigi, and Deskbar, an applet written in Python, which has some very handy scripts written for it and, which can extend its functionality well beyond the immediate desktop itself.

SSH tools, long used by UNIX gurus to perform complicated administrative tasks over the internet on machines miles away, are a very simple and user-friendly solution for more conventional purposes. Ubuntu users, read on to learn how to use SSH to run your favorite GNU/Linux software on Microsoft Windows—without installing any software on the Windows box.

One of the things I hate about Windows is that there is no good way to kill frozen processes. Theoretically, you type Ctrl-Alt-Delete, wait for Task Manager to pop up, and kill the process. But in reality, the process doesn't always die immediately (it usually takes multiple tries and a very long time). GNU/Linux users don't have this problem. Here's how to end processes using the terminal, a few GUIs, and even a first person shooter.

Last year, while running Ubuntu, I decided I wanted to watch a video, so I opened it up in the built-in Totem player. What happened next took me back to the dark era of codecs and computing. The XviD video I was watching became pixelated, the video became out of sync; within a few minutes it was unwatchable. I dual booted back into Windows XP, opened up by trusty MPUI and watched the video with the free software XviD codecs without any issues. The experience had left a bad taste in my mouth.

It’s been said that for a free software desktop to succeed it needs to address the needs of the average home user. Managing digital photographs is just one of those needs. Let’s see how one of the more popular free software photo management applications, digiKam, measures up.

Here's the first cryptic crossword from Free Software Magazine. Most clues should lead you to words somehow associated with free software, but one or two "everyday" words have been slipped in to act as decoys :-)

Today, everyone uses a different instant messenger. Your boss may use Lotus Sametime, your colleague AIM, your friend Google Talk, and your kid Yahoo! Messenger. However, these all take up hard drive space, RAM, and CPU usage. In addition, many of these are proprietary and Windows-only (two big minuses for GNU/Linux users). Luckily, the free software world has an alternative that enables users to chat with users of all of these programs (and many more). It is called Pidgin.

If you’re serious about music or DVDs, at some point you cross the threshold of having more than you can keep track of easily. The box full of index cards has served its purpose; it’s time to move on to storing information about your CDs and DVDs in a database.

Ever since I first fired up KDE on openSuSE, I’ve been in love. The KDE interface just swept me off my feet. But there’s always been one nagging thing. Firefox and Thunderbird stick out like two sore thumbs. They don’t look like KDE apps (see figure 1 and figure 4), they don’t work with KDE programs (like KPrinter), and they just don’t feel like they belong in KDE. Luckily, since both of these apps have support for add-ons, it is easy to remedy this.

OpenOffice.org is probably the biggest free software project in existence today. It certainly is the biggest single piece of software one can download and compile in one go, with the core package hitting over the 100MB mark (while bzip’d) and the total sources going over 200MB.

It directly competes with Microsoft Office, is a bit more easy to install than KOffice, and is very complete.

One of the biggest navigational issues with any operating system is using program menus. Windows users have to open the Start Menu, scan for the program, realize that the program is probably in the subfolder under the programmer’s name, scan the appropriate subfolder, and then click on the program’s icon. Macintosh users must open Finder, find and click on the Applications folder, and then search for the program’s name. GNOME and KDE users have an advantage: they have categories in their respective Applications and K menus.

I sometimes think that search tools are like my local bus: none comes along for ages and then three turn up in quick succession. For quite some time Beagle and Kat have been meeting the needs of users like you and me who fill up their hard drives with the results of our internet meanderings and because we have been remiss in keeping those drives well organized we eventually have to use search tools to find that PDF or HTML article we spent an eternity looking for.

Okay, that’s probably overstating it. There is a nugget of good code in there, somewhere, the bit that Dave Cutler originally designed back around 1989. There’s been so much cruft added on, MS-Windows seems more like a large tank designed by committee; powered by a very fast, very solid, very small sports car engine; and painted a very soothing shade of blue. It’s not really pretty, and it’s not really fun, but it does move, mostly.

But, if you must use MS-Windows, there is a way to make it a tolerable operating system. Just make it more like GNU/Linux.

As much as I despise MS-Windows, I live in a world that requires at least a working knowledge of the Worst OS In The Universe (tm). From my earliest experiences with MS-Windows 3.0, I looked for ways to make my life bearable: from the Workplace Shell demonstrations to the registry hacks of today, I try to make MS-Windows very unlike MS-Windows.

We make many sacrifices in the name of employment. Giving up our soul to MS-Windows should not be among them. It should bow to our will, not the other way ’round.

Tired of reading recipes the usual way? Frankly, I am. I find them more interesting, as well as easier and faster to read, by representing them as mind maps [3, 4]. In this article I have two goals: to demonstrate an alternative format for presenting recipes, and at the same time to provide a short users’ guide for Freemind [1, 2]. As I progress through the article I will also be describing a recipe that you can try for yourself—enjoy the meal!

Did you game well? If no, is it because you had 3D driver issues and couldn’t make head nor tail out of this mess? Here, I discuss the most recent driver releases on the most demanding 3D application there is today on the GNU/Linux desktop.